Carrie White (Literary)
Carrietta N. White also known as Carrie White is the title main protagonist of Stephen King's novel, Carrie. As a young high school student, Carrie is a shy, outcast, abused and bullied girl at Ewen High School, raised by her religious and mentally unstable mother, Margaret. Unseen by everyone, Carrie is gifted with devastating telekinetic and telepathic powers which are set on the loose over her schoolmates, her abusive mother and the entire town, after Carrie is pranked and taunted at her school prom. Birth Carrie was born on September 21, 1963 in Chamberlain, Maine, to Margaret and Ralph White. Carrie was conceived by Margaret alone, without medical assistence. Margaret first witnessed Carrie's powers when she saw a milk bottle floating above Carrie in her craddle, and assumed she was a "witch". The baby was almost murdered if not for Ralph's intervention. Ralph died sometime later at his work, leaving Carrie under Margaret's cares based on her religious and distorted beliefs. Over the years, Margaret ruled Carrie harshly with repeated threats of damnation, as well as physical, verbal, emotional, mental and terrible abuse. Childhood The level of Carrie's childhood and the height of constant and verbal abuse she endured at the hands of her mother, fellow peers and fellow classmates were far more extreme. For example: At Christian Summer Camp her comrades played pranks on her such as hiding all her underwear and putting a snake in her shoe, or short sheeting her bunk bed. Later when Carrie urinated in the bushes on the camp's hiking trip and came into contact with poison ivy after wiping with the wrong leaves, the kids called her "Scratch Ass". When she swam in the camp's lake they ducked her head underwater. At first it was funny, until she couldn't get her breath, but the kids kept calling her a "Scratch Ass" and Carrie got panicky and began to scream for air. She had even tried to take part in the other camp's activities, but the jokes never stopped playing on "Old Praying, Fart Face Carrie" until she had to come home on the bus a week early; her eyes, red and socketed from weeping. She was picked up by her mother at the station and sent her to the closet to pray for hours. Once the classmates found a love letter from Carrie to a boy named Flash Bobby Pickett and the students made hundreds of copies of it and pasted it all over the school's campus for all to see. One year Carrie was given the cruel nickname "Puddin Pop" by everyone, and the next year she became known as being called a cruel nickname "Pizza Face" by everyone. A boy named Billy Preston put peanut butter in her hair when she fell asleep in Study Hall; the books deliberately knocked from her desk; the pinches, the pokes, the wedgies, the legs outstretched in the cafeteria aisles to trip her; the obscene notes tucked into her purse when she wasn't looking. These were all the things Carrie faced day in and day out. Once when Carrie was at the school picnic she bent down to pray and the seam of her skirt loudly got ripped at the crack of her butt, causing everyone to laugh at her. In sports, Carrie was always missing the ball, even in kickball or clumsily running into the net during volleyball. Carrie is also uncoordinated in her movements and once fell flat on her face during Dance class in Sophomore year and chipped a tooth. One time Chris Hargensen called her house phone after school from the downtown "Kelly Fruit Company", where all the popular teens hung out to ask her if she knew that "Pig's Poop" was spelled: C-A-R-R-I-E. At school, Carrie was made fun of by her peers and classmates into submission on a daily basis. At home, Carrie's life was just as awful. Margaret didn't allow Carrie to have any friends, take interest in things such as celebrities and fashion, listen to rock music, sleep with a pillow, or even take showers as Margaret believed everything was bad, evil, sinful and godless; Carrie only took baths. Behind closed doors, Carrie was also beaten by her mother into submission on a daily basis and regularly slapped Carrie in the face, grabbed, dragged, violently shoved and locked into a prayer closet by her mother. Where Carrie was forced into the closet. Carrie is sometimes locked in the closet by days on end without food, water or even bathroom breaks. Carrie is so controlled by her mother she is even forced to wear unbecoming and outdated clothes and forbidden to wear the color red, as Margaret believed red was the "Devil's Color". Now there were instances, where Carrie's special abilities manifested all by itself without her even trying. It was usually trigger by her own inner frustration and private misery, and would flare when ever she lost her temper. For example, when Carrie was almost 3 years old she encountered a young and beautiful neighbor girl named Estelle Horan who was sunbathing topless. Seeing this, Carrie asked about her "Dirty Pillows" a phrase Carrie's mother installed into her head referring to breast. When Margaret caught Carrie taking to Estelle, Margaret severely hated Carrie and forced, regularly grabbed, dragged, violently shoved and locked her into the house. Suddenly, a shower of hail fell on the White's bungalow, while Carrie was being harshly abused by Margaret. Minutes later a rain of stones pelted against their home causing several damages on the White's property, and a large mahogany dinner table was sent flying through one of the house's window, shattering the glass. Carrie's powers were strong even when she was a small child and she was also able to read other people's minds and inner thoughts when they were close enough to her, mainly Miss Desjardin, the gym teacher, who secretly harbored both disgust and pity for the young girl. Teenagehood When Carrie was 16 years old, she unexpectedly had her first period while taking a shower in the locker room after gym class. Due to her mother's religious believes, Margaret refused to discuss the concept of menstruation with Carrie, resulting in Carrie to think she was internally bleeding to death. The idea that this could be the girl's first period did not occur to Carrie's female classmates. As with everything else, Carrie was viciously teased and mercilessly bullied by the girls in her P.E. class who all laughed hysterically as they threw tampons, small towels and sanitary napkins at her while loudly chanting: "PLUG IT UP!", over and over again. Miss Desjardin came out of her office to stop the commotion. And to stop the hysterical Carrie from panicking, Miss Desjardin slapped her across the face which caused a lightbulb above them to explode and a bucket of baseball bats to knock over all by itself. Miss Desjardin calmed Carrie down and reassured her everything was going to be okay and that she wasn't dying. Afterwards she explained to Carrie what menstruation was and told her it was a natural part of Womanhood. More of Carrie's psionic abilities were demonstrated on that same day. The assistant principal, Mr. Morton, who dismissed Carrie for the day, kept calling her "Cassie". Which Carrie yelled that it was not her name and the ash tray fell off his desk as if it moved by itself. Soon after that, while she walked home, a 5 year old boy named Tommy Erbter, verbally assaulted Carrie while riding past her on his bicycle. Carrie looked at the boy with rage as he went flying off the bicycle as if an unseen force had pushed him, and as he landed he seriously hurt himself. This surprised both Tommy and Carrie, who walked away as if nothing had happened. Later that day, after Margaret found out about the incident from the school she cruelly punished Carrie. She beated her with the bible, forced her on her knees with her to pray and locked her in the closet against her will for hours to ask God for "forgiveness" for having committed the "original sin" of becoming a woman due to showering naked with the other girls at school, which Margaret forbid. A few days later at school, when the incident had died down, Carrie was unexpectedly approached by Tommy Ross, who asked her to go to The Senior Prom with him. Tommy was a talented and handsome jock who unlike most of the cool crowd, was an actually very nice and well meaning teenager. Once, Tommy had even been approached by the Boston Red Sox Team, who wanted to recruit him after he graduated. He also was the boyfriend of one of the popular girls who tormented Carrie earlier, Sue Snell. Sue felt guilty for her mistreatment towards Carrie and honestly wanted to make it up to her by becoming her friend, and decided to sacrifice herself from going to the Prom and let Carrie take her potential prom date. This was a very good thing because Carrie also had a secret crush on Tommy. Although originally skeptical at first and against the idea, Carrie's hesitation was quickly forgotten and she subsequently accepted Tommy's invitation because she just couldn't resist the offer at the chance to finally experience being treated as if she fit in, even if it was only for just one night. Carrie was very nervous, excited and happy all at the same time and was determined to keep her promise to Tommy and go. But when Carrie told her mother about the Prom offer, Margaret threw tea at her face and ranted and raved. She told Carrie that the boys always come after the blood and that all boys want from girls is "sex"; how they like to take "virgins" in their cars to do dirty, ungodly, and blasphemous things with them. Margaret finally told Carrie that she would not allow her daughter to engage in such sinfulness after all she'd been taught. She then proceeded to slap Carrie across the face and ordered her to go in the closet to pray, but Carrie refused. As Margaret tried to hit Carrie again, Carrie stood up to her mother and stopped Margaret's hand in mid-air with her telekinesis, preventing the blow from reaching her face. Carrie than told her mother that she wanted to live her own life and that things were going to change and be different, and that she was going to the prom with or without Margaret's permission and that no one would stop her; the ultimate blasphemy to her. On the evening of the prom, Carrie prepared for the night and tried on the elegant and authentic prom dress she made. The gown was a thick fabric of crushed red velvet with a princess waistline and Juliet sleeves and allowed Carrie's cleavage to slightly show. Carrie also tried on matching high-heel shoes and a lovely corsage to complete the look. For the very first time in her young life, Carrie honestly looked and felt pretty, which was alien to her. When Margaret first saw her daughter dressed up in the gown, and seeing it was in the color red, revealing her "Dirty Pillows", she immediately ordered Carrie to take it off and burn it. And then she demanded that they do penance together and pray afterwards. But Carrie stood her ground and refused. To manipulate Carrie into staying at home, Margaret began to physically hurt herself as she scratched and clawed at own her face, pulled her hair out and punched herself in the mouth, causing herself to bleed a little. Carrie ignored her mother's crazy actions and even used her powers to physically slide her mother out the door of her bedroom and shut it in order to get ready without being distracted. Later that night, Tommy picked up Carrie for the prom as he promised, while Margaret stayed by herself and prayed silently in another room. Arriving at Thomas Ewen High School's Senior Prom "The Spring Ball" escorted by Tommy, Carrie was dazzled by all the glamour surrounding her. And as the night progressed Carrie's nerves began to fade and she felt comfortable while opening up to her peers and even made a few small jokes with some of the prom goers who finally treated her equally and with respect for once. For the first time since she can remember, Carrie enjoyed herself and Tommy even became romantically attracted to Carrie in secret. Soon, Miss Desjardin came over to the table where Carrie sat at, and told her the story about her own prom experience. However, little did Carrie know, or anyone else for that matter, was that Carrie was walking into a vile prank initiated by another girl in her class, Chris Hargensen, the main leader of Carrie's tormentors who ruthlessly bullied her earlier, as well as all her life. Chris is also the most beautiful and popular girl in school who's father was a successful and very wealthy lawyer. Chris believed Carrie was to blame for her being banned from going to the Prom after she became the ringleader in humiliating Carrie in the girl's locker room when Carrie received her first period. So as revenge, Chris had her abusive, greaser boyfriend who was the leader of a dangerous gang in Chamberlain named Billy Nolan, and a few of their friends, partake in the plot against Carrie to embarrass her in front of the entire school. Chris had Billy viciously slaughter and kill two pigs at a local farm and drain their blood into two big metal buckets. Then Billy placed the buckets over the school's stage on a high rafter beam completely hidden out of sight. Chris then had her friends rig the ballots for Prom King and Queen to ensure that Carrie and Tommy would win the contest. Chris and Billy eventually arrived to the school unseen. They quietly lurked outside the gym patiently. Just as planned, Carrie and Tommy are announced as the winners. A lush dog fur collar was thrown over Carrie's shoulders and Tommy was given a sceptre wrapped in aluminium foil. Then the two were immediately ushered up onto the stage to be crowned. But when the crowd began to sing the school song as tradition, this was the cue for an unseen Chris to pull a rope cord that caused the two buckets above to tip over and drench Carrie and Tommy with the rotting pig's blood while they sat on the thrones for the King and Queen. Seconds after the blood dump, one of the buckets fell on top of Tommy's head, knocking him out instantly and possibly even killing him. To Chris's delight, the prank was followed by a rain of cruel laughter in mass hysteria, by everyone in the room including the teachers and chaperones. Carrie, thinking additionally that Tommy had been purposely killed for taking her to prom, was overcome with humiliation and utter grief. She clumsily attempted to flee the blood splattered thrones while struggling to keep her balance. When Carrie hopped off the stage's platform, Miss Desjardin came rushing towards her with lying compassion. Carrie could see with her telepathy, where the real Miss Desjardin was, and she was still laughing like everyone else. Before she could reach her, Carrie looked at Miss Desjardin's direction and she flew backwards as if pushed by an unseen force. Miss Desjardin hit the wall next to the stage so hard, that the impact gave her a bloody nose. Before Carrie could make it to the exit, she was deliberately tripped by someone in the crowed and fell, causing the laughter to grow even louder. Eventually Carrie made her way through the exit and out the lobby doors, losing both her high-heel shoes as if she were Cinderella fleeing from the Ball. Once outside and alone, Carrie began to weep upon the grass on the front lawn of the school's campus. Tricked once again, Carrie was going to simply accept what had happened and shamefully return back to her home to admit to her mother she'd been right after all. She was ready to face more hours locked in that dark, lonely closet praying endlessy for the rest of her life as she had always done before. These last thoughts made Carrie suddenly snap. She changed her mind, upon realizing that she had a special gift to use as a secret weapon. Her telekinesis would give her the ability to make her tormentors pay for what they had done. They were in the palm of her hands. They were under her thumb and in her power. She had the POWER, and the word echoed in her mind. "POWER"… and oh, what a word that was! In a cold rage, Carrie's mind finally snapped and she returned to the School barefooted and with a sadistic vengeance and a thirst for bloody revenge. She saw how Tommy had fallen from the throne to the ground with people surrounding him and, as she stood safely outside the Auditorium, she decided to give everyone a taste of their own medicine 10 times fold. Carrie set about locking all the prom goers inside the Gym, teachers and students alike by telekinetically sealing the gymnasium doors, slamming them shut all at once. Hearing this, many people inside panicked and that started a stampede. They rushed to the exits and tried to bang on the doors, hammering them, pounding on them to open them, but Carrie's powers were far too strong, they were trapped! Carrie then peered into the windows and watched students faces smashed up against the glass like fish in an aquarium, seeing this made her laugh. Next she looked up and turned on the sprinkler system to wet everyone and ruin their expensive tuxedos and gowns; the only regret she had was it was raining water and not blood. Suddenly, one of the band musicians on stage was severely electrocuted by the large amp that had gotten soaked from the water. This made Carrie laugh again and she used her mind to break the backstage high-voltage power cables by picturing them in her head and threw them crackling on the wet stage causing purple sparks to fly into the air. Two students on the platform were also Immediately electrocuted; the lead band member named Josie Vreck one of the loudest ones who laughed at Carrie began to convulse uncontrollably when he touched the microphone and volts of electricity violently shot through his body. And a girl named Rhonda Simard busted out in a crazed puppet dance when she accidentally stepped on one of the cables, causing her prom dress to catch fire and burst into flames, setting her entirely ablaze. Carrie then telekinetically used the cables like slithering snakes and flung them back and forth into the air, painfully whipping people, shocking them and breaking their skin. She then dropped them upon the wet ground below. When the cables withered in the puddles of water, there was a violent flash, like lightning, and everyone was screaming all at once as they were killed. Once the hot sparks from the cables caught onto the prom's backdrop mural, causing it to completely catch fire, the hot flames quickly spread throughout the entire gym. Carrie mercilessly left the remaining prom goers trapped inside with the now dead Tommy to be consumed by the hellish inferno created by her telekinetic abilities, the rest was history. However, before moving completely on, the town emergency whistle went off and startled her. As a result, Carrie's mind's eye lost sight of the gymnasium doors for a second and some of the prom goers almost got out. But Carrie used her power and slammed them shut again, catching somebody's fingers to her it felt like Dale Norbert in the jamb, severing one of them. Despite Carrie's hostile revenge, a few lucky students and adults were smart enough to escape the via fire exit down the auditorium's corridor in the hallway next to the gym. It was the one and only exit that Carrie forgot to seal. The survivors got out just in time before being electrocuted and burned to death with everyone else still inside. When Carrie left the campus to return to her home, she made sure no one could put out the fire or tame the flames as she opened all the fire hydrants near the area to prevent the fire trucks from helping or saving anyone stuck inside. Eventually the gym exploded a half-hour later, demolishing the entire school. Carrie's extremely powerful telekinetic abilities initiated a highly destructive rampage causing much worse disasters in downtown, Chamberlain than at the high school. As Carrie walked home barefooted, she left a path of destruction and death in her way she "Flexed" her mind as hard as she could and made local gas mains at numerous corner stations explode, and let the broken pumps leak the spilt gasoline into the roads. While a male bystander is walking nearby, he carelessly drops his lighted cigarette on the ground, not realizing the streets are covered in gas. This caused more explosions which destroyed and demolished the town shops and local businesses. Carrie also used her powers to cause several fire hydrants to explode, flooding the streets. Carrie then brought down the powerlines and when the snapped power wires hit the water and gas soaked pavement, it ignited several wildfires that burned down the majority of the town's neighborhoods. Countless of bystanders were killed in the streets and electrocuted by the wires of the fallen powerlines as they evacuated from their burning homes. By this point, the entire heart of Chamberlain was up in flames, taking literally hundreds of lives with it. Also, most importantly, Carrie let loose a strange side effect of her abilities "broadcast telepathy," which means that anyone within a certain radius of the disaster area suddenly found themselves learning about the destruction at Ewen High and downtown Chamberlain. They also learned from this telepathy, that it was "Carrietta White" causing the destruction, regardless if they knew or not who Carrie even was. During the entire event, Carrie seemed completely catatonic and was believed to even be "smiling" as she moved along. She then went into a Cathedral to pray, while at the same time, objects from the church such as pews, hymnals and a communion set were thrown. Death Carrie finally made it back home. With her telekinesis, she made the front door swing wide open and she destroyed all the items in the house as she entered the doorway. Clocks, dishes, plates, pictures and other religious objects where tossed and thrown into the air breaking and shattering as they fell to the floor. Carrie, still covered in blood, much of it being her own by now, and one of her bare feet was,bleeding from stepping on a broken bottle in the streets, had the intention of finally killing her mother who had been waiting for her daughter to return to her. Due to seeing that orange haze in the sky from the flames burning all throughout the town, Margaret had come to believe the "Devil" had truly come to Chamberlain, to collect Carrie's soul. The only way Margaret could save her condemned daughter was to kill her before the Devil did. As Carrie approached her mother bloody and dirty, Margaret sat before Carrie and then told her about her miscarriage and the true story of how she considered killing herself after having premarital intercourse with Ralph. She also confessed that Carrie was conceived by "Marital Rape" and that she was a "Punishment" from God. Margaret, thinking that Carrie was possessed by the Devil himself, carefully took out Ralph's old kitchen butcher-knife from the folds of her dress so couldn't see. She told Carrie, she tried to kill her twice before during the first few years of Carrie's life, but she "backslid". As Carrie fell down to her knees to weep and pray with her mother, Margaret stabbed her daughter in the shoulder, the blade went all the way into Carrie's shoulder with only the handle visible. Margaret had hit an artery, causing Carrie much pain as she began to bleed heavily. Angry by her mother's actions, Carrie decided it was time to teach Mama a lesson too. So in return, Carrie used her powers to slow her mother's heart down, painfully and very slowly, until eventually stopping it completely and killing her by giving her a heart attack. With Margaret dead, Carrie then left her home as the whole neighborhood street was on fire, consuming all the houses on the block one after the other. And sure enough, the wildfire eventually reached the White's bungalow and nearly burned it completely down as well. Carrie, with the butcher knife still stuck deep in her shoulder to the hilt, wandered aimlessly until she approached the roadhouse called "The Cavalier", where her father drunk himself into a stupor before raping Margaret. It was amazing how she kept going, despite her wounds, but she still had one more last thing to do to complete her final destruction. Carrie arrived just in time to catch Chris and Billy fleeing the establishment after making love inside. Here, Carrie could feel them, almost taste them with her telepathy. She faced the two who she needed to finally kill most of all before the night was over, before she was completely finished with her rampage of revenge. Knowing she was responsible for what had happened to Ewen High and downtown Chamberlain, Billy tried to run Carrie down with his car to kill her. However, Carrie "felt" the car approaching and wrestled the oncoming vehicle with her telekinesis and violently slammed it full force into the roadhouse. Billy's nose was broken and his torso was crushed into the steering wheel. Chris was immediately thrown face first into the dashboard, busting the glass windshield. The car exploded, killing both Chris and Billy instantly and also destroying the building, starting yet another major fire that burned all through the parking lot. After the explosion, Carrie became weak and collapsed in the middle of the parking lot out of exhaustion from over using her powers and also the blood loss caused by her wound. Sue, who had been following the trail of destruction caused by Carrie in hopes of tracking her down to stop her rampage, finally arrived a short time later only to find Carrie nearly dead on the ground in the burning parking lot. Carrie, in pain and slowly dying from her injuries blamed Sue for the prank. But before Carrie died Sue invited Carrie into her mind to see that she had no part in planning the nasty joke that occrued earlier that evening, and just paired her up with Tommy as amends for locker room incident. Carrie found that Sue was innocent and never really felt any personal hatred towards her. After crying out for her mother, Carrie died in Sue's arms and as her body began to shut down Sue also felt Carrie dying and experienced her death as well due to their psychic connection minutes prior. Seconds after, Sue got up to fetch for help but could feel herself miscarrying, though she initially thought that she was apparently having her period. Whether it was her really miscarrying Tommy's baby or a just a period caused by a side effect from Sue's and Carrie's brief connection is unknown. Shortly aftedr that, when her body was taken away, Sue Snell identified Carrie White to the authorities in order to regulate the procedures about it. Aftermath "The Black Prom" tragedy hits the nation bigger than the JFK assassination. Carrie's story becomes a controversial and highly discussed subject. An autopsy is performed on Carrie's body. The coroner's report lists Carrie's brain has a different cell pattern compared to other brains. Scientist begin to take the concept of telekinesis more seriously. People all over the world are also scared that another telekinetic child could be born. Miss Desjardin, one of the few lucky survivors, resigns due to her guilt for not reaching out to Carrie, for not preventing what happened on prom night and secretly for having approved the evil prank in the end, even stating that she would rather commit suicide than teach again. Mr. Grayle also resigns for not preventing more what happened. Meanwhile, the authorities and skeptics are investigating and trying to figure out what exactly happened in Chamberlain Maine that caused 440 people to die. It's a rather big mystery, due to the fact Carrie killed almost all of the witnesses in her mass-homicide. And with so many people dead and so much destroyed outerly and innerly, Chamberlain becomes a virtual ghost town, and even a popular tourist attraction because of Carrie´s actions. Sue Snell goes on to write a book about her involvement with Carrie White. She warns her readers to never forget about Carrie, or the events that occured in Chamberlain, or something like it could happen all over again. Carrie's body was finally buried next to her mother's in a graveyard somewhere in Maine. Category:Literary Category:Deceased Category:Carrie (Novel) characters Category:Females Category:Main Protagonists Category:Protagonist Category:Characters Category:Carrie characters Category:Good Characters